


Sagittarius

by Eloarei



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Centaurs, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slavery, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 17:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9559319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Wasting away in a small southwestern town was no kind of life for an energetic young centaur, in Jesse McCree's opinion. Being sold as a slave to a Japanese mobster wasn't any better, but at least he had the boss's pretty son to occupy him until he could figure out how to escape.





	

**Author's Note:**

> According to a fandom survey I saw recently, "centaurification" is a thing, which is surprising news to me, because I freaking love centaurs and never see them in fics. So I made McCree a centaur. This fic is a little "Hotblood"-esque, in that centaurs aren't mythical creatures; they co-exist with humans mostly and always have.   
> This fic will probably be about 13 chapters, amounting to a little more than 30k? But my writing is slow and unpredictable, so I apologize in advance.

Centaurs weren't common in Japan; this was something that Jesse didn't know as a child. He didn't learn it until, at the age of 15, tired, scared, half-broken, he managed to lift his head high enough to ask one of the other captives, “Japan? Why Japan?”   
  
“We're exotic to them,” she said. “Less than one percent of the native population is centaur, so the slave trade is strong there.”   
  
He was aware that the Southwest, where he grew up, had the highest concentration of his kind in the US, topping out at almost twenty percent in some cities, and that the average in other parts of the country didn't usually exceed ten, but he'd never really thought about how it was in other areas of the world. Hearing a figure like one percent made him even lonelier than he already was, stuffed in a shipping crate with six other desolate souls, bound for who-knows-where.   
  
Well, he knew where now.   
  
This was a right mess he'd found himself in. _'That's what you get for running away from home,'_ he imagined his mother saying, hands on her hips, shaking her head, although he knew logically that she probably missed him, no matter how much of a pain in her ass he'd been. But he'd _told_ her that he was gonna leave, threatened it a hundred times since he'd become a teenager, said he was gonna go strike out on his own and to hell with their dinky little backwater town, good riddance, so she probably wasn't surprised when one day he just didn't come home. She probably didn't look for him, didn't call the police or anything, and that was all on him for being such a little shit.   
  
Maybe small-town life wasn't his thing but, so far, slavery wasn't real great either.   
  
The woman who answered him just before was the most level-headed out of the handful of them. She looked like she was maybe about his mother's age, and maybe about her temperament too. He wanted to ask her name, but the past few weeks had been enough to dissuade him. Their captors _preferred_ that they not speak at all, but the only thing they got _really_ mad about was the use of names. Jesse quickly realized that removing their names was just another way of removing their humanity, as if the beatings and general mistreatment weren't enough. He'd been rebellious for the first week or two, thinking he could escape; that energy hadn't lasted long.   
  
He couldn't recall ever being so tired and so miserable. His knees were bruised from sleeping in metal shipping crates and on concrete warehouse floors for a month straight, and he was cold and filthy and hungry pretty much all the time. None of them were in danger of dying, the slavers made sure of that, but they were absolutely about as uncomfortable as you could get. Another conscious decision on the part of their captors; it made them unlikely to resist when they were dragged around and shoved under the noses of prospective buyers.   
  
They'd only been shown once while in America, and the impassive well-dressed man had chosen a filly about Jesse's age. He didn't envy the girl, even though being bought meant she didn't have to suffer the metal and concrete anymore. The situation hadn't gotten so bad that he was willing to accept being sold like livestock, not yet.   
  
Another buyer looked at them down in Mexico, and the man had such an evil look in his eye that Jesse shivered in fear. He was glad he hadn't spoken any Spanish since they'd picked him up; he didn't want to give this man any reason to choose him. When the buyer motioned to a full-grown man in the back, a brawny guy who looked like he could haul a plowshare on his own, Jesse barely stifled a strangled cry of relief. The guilt ate at him the rest of the night, but he couldn't pretend he wasn't glad he hadn't been picked.   
  
Next they'd spent several horrible weeks in the heavy iron belly of a cargo ship. Not once did he see the sky or sea, but the rocking made it fairly obvious that they were on the water.   
  
Now they were on land again, in Japan, if the matronly woman had heard right. Soon they'd be seen by another potential buyer, and another after that, and then another, presumably until they'd all been sold off to their various fates. Jesse wondered how far across the world he'd get before someone picked him. He hoped it was far. He wondered if maybe eventually he'd be so bruised and malnourished that nobody would take him and the slavers would just throw him out, in the middle of the Russian tundra or somewhere. He'd probably freeze to death, but oh well.   
  
After boarding the shipping truck again, he didn't have to wonder for very long. It was only a few hour's drive before they stopped, and were ushered out into another warehouse. Instead of blinking into the dim light and being confronted immediately with the new buyer, the seven of them were descended upon by their temporary masters and their harried two-legged servants, who rushed to bathe and groom them.   
  
“Why?” Jesse quietly wondered aloud, as several pairs of hands quickly curry-combed his fur and brushed through his hair and tail, careless of tangles. The slavers hadn't cared to make them presentable for the previous buyers. Maybe the cross-sea voyage had taken more of a toll on their appearances than he'd realized.   
  
“This is an especially wealthy client,” one of the servants explained under their breath, eyes and hands still busy on their task of making Jesse look less abused than he was. “The boss really wants to impress this guy. Hopes he can build an alliance, for future trades.”   
  
Once they looked halfway civilized, they were lead outside to stand in a row on the asphalt. The sun was blinding after weeks of near-darkness, but it and the bright blue sky it hung in were the most beautiful things he thought he'd ever seen. A soft breeze blew around them, and the only noise (aside from the shifting of their hooves and the muttering of the slavers around them) was the ocean, until a small fleet of expensive cars pulled up and deposited a dozen men in suits and plain sunglasses. After they'd all gotten out and stood at attention, a man who was clearly their boss exited one of the cars and approached them. A child slid out after him and came to stand next to the man, hands folded behind their back.   
  
The transaction was completed almost entirely in Japanese, a language which Jesse knew maybe ten words of, and only the mostly-useless things he picked up in school from nerd friends. Neither the slavers nor the rich man ever once uttered 'kawaii'; based on the tones of their voices, some haggling was happening. For the most part, Jesse didn't concern himself with it. He focused on not fidgeting, and when he felt confident that he was doing well in that regard, he chanced a look at the child.   
  
They weren't so much a kid as they were just a short, androgynous teenager. With long black hair, wearing some sort of robe, and an expressionless face, Jesse couldn't tell exactly how old or what gender they likely were. They stood too far away to get a good look at, never leaving the side of the man Jesse was sure was their father, and staring off blankly into the middle distance until their father addressed them.   
  
_'This one's better trained than any of us'll ever be,'_ he thought.   
  
When the rich man had talked to the slavers for several minutes, and apparently felt satisfied with whatever decision they had come to, he turned to his child and offered a swift command. The young human nodded and approached the line of centaurs and began to inspect them.   
  
From this distance, Jesse could finally tell that it was (probably) a young man, a boy somewhere around his age. The robe-thing and the long hair had thrown him off. He had a rather lovely face, stern as it was; only the barest flickers of emotion crossed it as he carefully checked over each of the slaves.   
  
Maybe it wasn't too odd for a business tycoon to bring his kid to work with him, Jesse didn't really know, but wasn't it strange that he hadn't spared half a glance for his 'merchandise' and instead set his son to do it? Unless he was letting his son pick one of them out for himself? A bit of a creepy gift, in Jesse's opinion: _'Here, son, go pick out a nice_ person. _That's what all the kids are wanting these days, right? That's an appropriate present?'_  
  
Still... He could do worse than this. Much worse, he thought, remembering the two that had been sold along the way. He still wasn't set on being a slave; he hadn't given in. The darkness and deprivation of the past month had been wearing him down, slowly eating away at his free will, but getting just a whiff of this fresh air had renewed his resolve. Now he was thinking... maybe being bought by this scrawny teenager would be for the best. If there was anyone he might be able to escape from, this would be them.   
  
And in the meantime, he could do worse than having to look at that face every day.   
  
Jesse took a deep breath and tried to look charming, like he was back in school and trying to get a date with one of the cute girls in his class. His heart was racing though, and he guessed the look on his face was probably closer to when he was trying to get a teacher to curve his grade-- begging, knowing he was in deep shit if they didn't take pity on him.   
  
It was a tense few minutes, while the young man looked over the others, mostly impassive, but when he came upon Jesse his static expression faltered again, a little more than it had before. Jesse couldn't tell what he might be thinking, especially as the look was wiped from his face quickly and he progressed with his inspection as if nothing was wrong.   
  
First, he circled Jesse, hands to himself, looking for... who knows what: obvious imperfections or something of the sort. Then he made another round, this time smoothing his hands down Jesse's lower shoulders, his back, his flank, combing his hands through his tail and lifting it up to peer beneath it. Jesse shuddered and barely stopped himself from kicking reflexively. He chuckled nervously and muttered, “Ain't gonna buy me dinner first?”   
  
He heard his friends on either side of him stifle gasps. Luckily no one else was close enough to have heard him, except for his inspector, who just tugged lightly on his tail in what might have been some kind of response. Chances were high that he didn't speak English anyway, and meant the gesture simply as 'shut up' rather than... whatever else it might have been.   
  
He continued on almost as if he hadn't heard the comment, but when he came around to the front again, Jesse could almost swear the young man's face was a little red. The color didn't abate as he began to inspect Jesse's human-like half, touching with perhaps less confidence than he'd done before. He placed his hands on Jesse's chest and felt through to his ribs-- looking to see that nothing was broken, probably. Jesse winced a little over a small bruise; that caught the young man's attention but didn't stop his wandering hands, which went on to check his arms, his shoulders, his collar bones, and then up to his face. He tweaked Jesse's nose, pressed on his cheeks and brow, and then stuck his fingers straight in Jesse's mouth.   
  
“Open,” he said, softly, but deeper than Jesse would have expected, and definitely in English. Jesse complied, surprised into obedience, and the young man pulled his chin down so he could see inside Jesse's mouth from such a low vantage point. After a moment he let go, and Jesse pulled back, swallowing hard. Then the inspector moved on to the next in line, with just the shortest of lingering glances, which Jesse was fairly certain he wasn't imagining.   
  
He was still trying to calm himself by the time his would-be master returned to his father's side and made his report. The two conversed for a few moments in Japanese, and then the business man turned to the slaver and said something that caused his face to light up.   
  
“Alright guys!” the slaver called to his partners and servants, gesturing grandly. “Shimada's taking them all. Let's get 'em back in the transport! And after the drop-off we're goin' for the most expensive sushi on this island!”   
  
A flurry of emotions came over Jesse, not least of which was one last burst of hatred toward the slaver boss for his flippant attitude toward trading their lives for some fancy fish-rolls. But he and his brutish gang would be gone soon, and the small group of centaurs would be in the hands of some new unknown master. 'Shimada'. The man had decided to buy them all? Did that mean it wasn't a present for his son? No teenager could need seven slaves, especially of the extra-large half-equine sort.   
  
Jesse got the feeling he might have read the situation wrong. He wasn't sure where this would leave his escape plans.   
  
He couldn't spare much time to think about it just then, as they were being pushed around again, back into the warehouse where the cargo truck was still parked. Jesse looked back over his shoulder at the well-dressed Japanese men retreating back into their own cars, and was a little surprised to see the boss's son doing the same. Their eyes met for just a second before Jesse rear-ended one of his mates and had to return to attention, lest he get one final beating.   
  
Not that he expected their new masters wouldn't beat them. What kind of slave-owner didn't beat their slaves, right? That was just an assumption, but Jesse'd always noticed that rich people tended to do whatever they felt like, which usually included unnecessary displays of power.   
  
And if it was _all_ of them going, that probably meant they were gonna be doing something typical like farming, didn't it, instead of being personal servants? His mind wandered, wildly imagining what the future held, what service to Shimada would be like.   
  
Once they were all aboard, the heavy truck door down and locked, leaving them with just one cursory armed guard (the same guy as usual; maybe even just a mercenary, since he didn't seem to give a damn if they talked), several of them broke into a whispered chatter, half of which was directed at him.   
  
“Kid, I can't believe you mouthed off like that,” an older man said, somewhere between appalled and proud.   
  
“I din't really mean to,” he replied sheepishly. He fidgeted, remembering how the young Shimada had stroked his tail, the shivers it sent up his spine. “It just sorta slipped out.”   
  
A woman clicked her tongue at that. “Best not do it again. If you make them mad, you're like to get us all punished, and I don't relish seeing how gangsters punish their servants.”   
  
Someone else scoffed. “Gangsters?”   
  
“Yakuza,” the woman said, rolling her eyes as if it was obvious. “All those black suits, armed to the teeth. Could've been CIA but for the tattoos.”   
  
As the others argued, the motherly woman that Jesse couldn't help but feel most close to approached and set her hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?” she asked, her voice the gentlest thing in his life right now.   
  
Jesse nodded, his mind a little too frazzled to come up with a response that wasn't mostly a lie, too busy running scenarios in his head, like that glimpse of sunlight had kicked his brain into overdrive and off the edge into anxiety.   
  
“It's going to be okay,” she told him, rubbing her hand soothingly down his neck, through the little line of mane that had started to grow there in the absence of clippers. She rested her head against his shoulder in a way that made him think maybe it wasn't just to comfort _him._ He wanted to ask about her family, suddenly positive that she had her own kids back home, but his jaw was locked tight through the tremors that shook him.   
  
The others wound down their argument soon, too tired and stressed to keep it up, and Jesse stayed quiet the rest of the way.   
  
It wasn't a long drive anyway; more tense than any other leg of their journey, but fairly short in comparison. The truck swayed as it came to a stop, and they all held their breath until the door was rolled up and bright light spilled in.   
  
Shimada wasn't the one who greeted them, and neither was his son. The small group of Japanese men and women who beckoned them out of the crate had a distinctly more down-to-earth look about them; servants, Jesse guessed, from the set of their shoulders, the clasp of their hands before them. They stepped in one at a time and guided out two of the new slaves, one at each hand, except for the last quiet, kimono-clad woman, who had only Jesse left to escort. She laid her hand behind his lower shoulder and walked him out, but she hardly spared him a glance, as if she was specifically trying not to look at him. He'd seen this pointed ignoring of centaurs before, usually by foreign tourists, but now he realized why: she was trying not to stare.   
  
“Y'know, you can look at me if ya want,” he said. “It don't cost nothin'.”   
  
He didn't understand her quick, quiet reply, but she did seem to let go of a breath she'd been holding and give him a curious once-over, even looking him in the face like he was a person and not just a dumb animal, and he figured that was a step in the right direction. Still, he hoped he didn't have to individually break the ice with every person in this place.   
  
Even just _meeting_ every person in this place would take some time. They'd exited the truck not into some dingy close-walled warehouse but out into the open, airy grounds of an honest-to-goodness palace. The main building sat before them, some ways in the distance, separated from where they now stood by high walls and many smaller buildings. At the moment, they were being led down cobblestone paths lined with beautifully manicured shrubbery, winding around the gridded compound buildings until they passed through a privacy fence into a small yard which was dominated by a wide, shallow pool. It looked extremely inviting, with steam rolling off the top of the still water.   
  
“This some kinda trick?” Jesse muttered, skeptical. The others looked over their shoulders at him, seemingly in agreement.   
  
“It is no trick,” one of the servants responded in careful, slow English. “The master wishes his people to be clean and in good spirits. You are to bathe here. We will assist you if need be.”   
  
Jesse huffed a dismissive horse-like noise, but eagerly stepped toward the water's edge until someone stopped him with a hand gripped around his leg. His guide said something hurried that he didn't understand and then motioned to the back of the yard, where shower-heads poked out of the stone wall. Showing someone to a bath and then telling them they could only shower didn't sound like 'not a trick', in Jesse's opinion, but hot water was hot water and the soap was nice as well. It was better when he realized that they'd just wanted the centaurs to rinse off before soaking-- apparently a Japanese custom, according to his mother-friend, who knew a few things about the culture. And he couldn't really blame them; even after the quick grooming the slavers had given them earlier, they were still pretty filthy.   
  
The pool, when they finally got there, was nothing short of divine. Jesse thought he might cry; one of the others actually _did_ , though it was probably due more to emotional whiplash than any sort of actual relief. The bath was like one of those traditional Japanese hot springs, hardly more than three feet deep in the middle, which meant that they had to lay down to get anywhere near fully immersed. Even then, their chests and shoulders stuck out.   
  
To remedy this, Jesse took a deep breath and rolled over on his back. Instantly, it was like he was in a different world. The sounds and shapes and colors were all muted down there; everything that made up the real world was washed out into an amateur watercolor version of itself. It was beautiful. Peaceful. A better version of the world, for lack of all the hard detail. He considered staying down there for the rest of his short life.   
  
But after a minute or so, legs and hooves churned the water around him, muffled shouts disrupting the quiet tranquility. Several sets of hands grabbed him by the arms and lifted until his head broke free from the water. Despite himself, he gasped in the air; seemed like his _body_ wasn't done living, at the very least.   
  
“Kid!” “Boy!” “Are you okay?”   
  
A few of the servants were shouting, one at him and the others across the privacy fence. His matronly friend pulled him back against her and into a protective hug, as the gate opened and several more servants rushed in, followed by a familiar young man who looked worried until he saw that Jesse hadn't actually drowned. He let out a shallow sigh and schooled his face into something less emotive, opting to stand back and watch as the centaurs were all checked over and led out of the water.   
  
When the servants had stopped fussing, the young man came forward and addressed them, pointedly not returning Jesse's stare. “Welcome to your new home,” he began, his English heavily accented but easy enough to understand. “You are all now part of the Shimada family. Above all, you will obey our leader, my father. However, he has tasked me to oversee your training. I ask for your respect and cooperation in this matter.”   
  
Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Trainin'? Trainin' for what?”   
  
Both his centaur mates and the remaining servants stifled gasps or shuffled nervously to hear him speak without being given explicit permission. The young master Shimada, however, seemed mostly amused. He finally returned the look Jesse had been drilling into him, and for a short moment it seemed to Jesse just like being under the water-- as if all the other details of the world had blurred out to obscurity, except for them.   
  
“'For what?' For whatever will best serve our purposes.”   
  
He was pretty sure that response was supposed to sound threatening, but the young master's voice and the intensity of his stare had Jesse tensing up in something more complicated than fear. “Well, yes _sir_ ,” he said, only _mostly_ sarcastic.   
  
Whether the young master was really that magnanimous, to ignore the sarcastic reply, or simply didn't understand English sarcasm, Jesse wasn't sure. Either way, Shimada turned and left the yard, and the group of wary centaurs was ushered after him. When he glanced back and caught Jesse's eye for just a moment, it seemed he was almost smiling.   
  
At fifteen years old, with more energy than brains probably and an incurable desire for freedom, Jesse McCree wasn't going to give in to this fate. He would find some way out of the unfortunate situation he found himself in. But until that happened, he figured he could chase a secondary goal: the smile he knew the young master was hiding just beneath the surface. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I probably should have waited until I was done with ch.2 to post this, to give it a more cohesive feel, but I had to go ahead with this chapter before I could convince myself not to. Feedback is more than appreciated-- it feeds the writing-beast, who otherwise spends most of its time sleeping.   
> Thanks for reading!   
> Also: have a song. https://youtu.be/pWZcxQxE56Y "Michi" ("Road"), by the Yoshida Brothers, played on the lovely instrument called the Shamisen. It's something I'll likely be mentioning in later chapters.


End file.
